Geauga Lake & Wildwater Kingdom

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Geauga Lake & Wildwater Kingdom

Geauga Lake's ride side gate.
Location Aurora, Ohio
Website www.geaugalake.com
Owner Cedar Fair, L.P.
Opened 1887
Previous names Geauga Lake - 1887 to 2000
Six Flags Ohio - 2000 to 2001
Six Flags Worlds of Adventure - 2001 to 2004
Geauga Lake - 2004
Geauga Lake & Wildwater Kingdom - 2005 to Present
Operating season May through September
Area 690 acres (2.8 km²)
Rides 54 total
  • 10 roller coasters
  • 9 water rides

Geauga Lake & Wildwater Kingdom is an amusement park located in Aurora, Ohio, United States, originally founded in 1887 as Geauga Lake. In 1996, Premier Parks (soon to be Six Flags) purchased the park from Funtime and in 2000 Six Flags rebranded the park to become Six Flags Ohio. A year later they purchased the adjacent SeaWorld of Ohio and merged the two to form Six Flags Worlds of Adventure. On March 10, 2004, Six Flags sold the park to Cedar Fair, L.P. (parent company of Cedar Point in nearby Sandusky, Ohio), who returned it to its original name. In 2005, Cedar Fair announced the conversion of the south side to a water park and the park changed names once more to become Geauga Lake & Wildwater Kingdom.

For a detailed history of the park from 1887 to the present, see The History of Geauga Lake at the park's official site.

Geauga Lake is also the name of the lake along which the amusement park lies, which straddles Portage and Geauga counties in the city of Aurora and township of Bainbridge[1], as well as of a nearby unincorporated settlement[2].

Contents

[edit] Current Roller Coasters

Items marked with * indicates no name change

Ride Year Opened Six Flags Name Description
Big Dipper 1925 * A John A. Miller wooden coaster. The park officially became an amusement park when this coaster opened. The ride served as the park entrance gate.
Double Loop 1977 * An Arrow Dynamics double looping coaster.
Raging Wolf Bobs 1988 * A summers/Dinn wooden coaster based off the Bobs.
Head Spin 1996 Mind Eraser A Vekoma "boomerang" type roller coaster.
Thunderhawk 1998 Serial Thriller A Vekoma SLC inverted coaster.
Beaver Land Mine Ride 2000 Road Runner Express A Zierer kiddie coaster.
Dominator 2000 Batman: Knight Flight A Bolliger & Mabillard floorless roller coaster; currently the world's longest "Floorless" coaster.
Steel Venom 2000 Superman: Ultimate Escape An Intamin AG impulse coaster.
Villain 2000 * A wooden coaster built by Custom Coasters International.

[edit] Past Roller Coasters

Items marked with * indicates no name change

Ride Year Opened Year Closed Six Flags Name Description
Corkscrew 1978 1995 * An Arrow Dynamics Corkscrew coaster
Cyclone 1976 1980 * A Pinfari Z47 portable coaster
Wild Mouse ~1958 ~1970s * A Schiff Wild Mouse
X-Flight 5/26/2001 9/17/2006 * Vekoma Flying coaster (2nd generation)


[edit] Historical additions and changes

In 1977: Geauga Lake unveils Double Loop, the world's first steel coaster with two consecutive vertical loops. The coaster was designed by Arrow Development.

In 1983: The park opens phase one of Boardwalk Shores, one of the first water parks to be included in an amusement park for one price.

In 1984: Boardwalk Shores expands again with the introduction of The Wave, the largest wave pool ever built at the time.

In 1988: Geauga Lake celebrates its centennial season with the introduction of Raging Wolf Bobs. The coaster, designed by Curtis Summers and Charlie Dinn, was inspired by the Bobs coaster from Chicago's defunct Riverview Park.

In 1995/1996: Corkscrew is removed to make room for Head Spin (Mind Eraser). Corkscrew now resides in MGM Dizzee World, India.

Friday, May 5, 2000 Six Flags Ohio opens for the first time under its new name. A total of 40 million dollars was spent rebranding the park from Geauga Lake. Among the featured additions were Batman Knight Flight, a steel looping coaster, Superman: Ultimate Escape, an Intamin Impulse coaster, The Villain, a large wooden roller coaster, and the Roadrunner Express, a family roller coaster. Also, a new children's area called Looney Tunes Boomtown was opened, as well as Shipwreck Falls, a new splash boat ride.

January 4, 2001 Six Flags Ohio Announces a Flying roller coaster, dubbed "X-Flight", that would feature a 115 foot hill, and numerous flying elements designed to enhance the design of the cars, which holds riders in a prone position.

January 10, 2001 Six Flags Ohio later announced they had purchased neighboring Sea World Ohio for $110 million, located around the same lake as Six Flags. The two parks would be combined as one park, Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure. The animal exhibits and shows from Sea World would now be included with admission.

January 20, 2002 Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure announces a new animal exhibition show called "Tiger Island", featuring four white Bengal tigers performing tricks, would open in 2002. In mid-2002, Shouka, a female orca, was brought to the park via a breeding loan from a marine park in France. Efforts to bring in a male orca from Argentina failed.

In 2003: Hurricane Mountain waterslides were built, billed as the tallest waterslide complex in Ohio, USA. Also the Starfish and Thriller Bees family rides were opened. The 3 Shark slides opened also, The Mako, The Great White, and The Hammer Head.

March 2004: Six Flags sells the park to Cedar Fair, who changes the name back to Geauga Lake. Six Flags keeps the animals and disperses them to other properties.

June 2005, a 20 acre (80,000 m²) Water Park located on the former site of SeaWorld of Ohio opens, under the name of Wildwater Kingdom. The expansion includes a ProSlide Tornado slide (known as Liquid Lightning), Children's Water Playground, an Action River, and the relocation of Hurricane Mountain (now known as Thunder Falls). In addition, Raging Wolf Bobs was retracked and received a new Gerstlauer train purchased from Holiday World, the Starfish and Thriller Bees were brought back, and new picnic pavilions built on the former site of Hook's Lagoon. The Peanuts characters were introduced and two new movies were added in the Geauga Lake Motion Simulator and 4-D Theater: Dino Island II and Robots of Mars. The biggest change for 2005 was the admission price, which was dropped 10 dollars to $24.95. Another new addition to the park was the "Picnic by the Lake" buffet which takes place daily in the newly moved lakeside picnic pavilions.

In 2005, the park announced that they would construct a new wave pool in Wildwater Kingdom. The pool would be 30,000 square feet in size, and would be called Tidal Wave Bay. This opened on May 27, 2006 along with a new version of the "Splash Landing" waterslides, and consolidated all the water attractions on the Wildwater Kingdom side of the park. 2005 would also be the final year of Hurricane Hannah's water park and Mr. Hyde's Nasty Fall, which was dismantled in January 2006.

November 2006, the park announced the removal of the X-Flight rollercoaster and the monorail. X-Flight will be relocated to another park owned by Cedar Fair LP.

' ' '2007' ' ' The park's 2007 operating schedule has been significantly cut back compared with the schedules of seasons past The park will now only be opening Memorial Day-Labor Day with Oktoberfest acting as a bonus weekend following the official closing of the park.

[edit] Ticket prices and calendar

Current admission is based on a pay-one-price ticket for the rides in the park. The current prices, as well as a Calendar of operating days can be found on the Official Geauga Lake Website.

The parks calendar recently was taken down then put back up. The calendar is currently down again.

[edit] External links

Roller coasters at Geauga Lake

Beaver Land Mine Ride - Big Dipper - Double Loop - Dominator - Head Spin - Raging Wolf Bobs - Steel Venom - Thunderhawk - Villain - X-Flight
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